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Architecture
Post Colonial India and its Architecture - I
Charles Correa - The Traditional in the Modern
by Ashish Nangia
Introduction
The
post-independence generation saw an increasing number of architects from South
Asia migrate to Europe and the United States for advanced studies. Some of
these would later return, setting up practice and often evolving highly original
styles of work, combining Western rationalism and architectural theory with
vernacular tradition and an appreciation of the need to preserve and reinvent
South Asia’s built heritage for a postcolonial age.
 In the ranks
of those who have contributed substantially to architectural practice and
discourse in South Asia is Charles Correa. Born in 1930 of Goan origin, Correa
studied at the University of Michigan, and then the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, before establishing a practice in Bombay. Over the span of a career
starting in the early 1950s to the present day, Correa has evolved a distinctive
style of his own and has been a chief actor or major participant in various
influential projects that shape and give definition to postcolonial South Asian
architecture.
A
representative catalogue of his work displays an impressive vocabulary and
technical virtuosity that he brings to his work, and is also a fair
representation of the evolution of South Asian urban centers and the debate
around them - from celebrating and valorizing tradition and heritage, to the
need for increasing housing, creating markets for the arts and leisure, and
finally responses to the challenges that explosive urban growth creates.
Correa’s
responses to these questions have been outstandingly innovative, displaying an
impressive knowledge of tradition from various sources, an understanding of
technique and, perhaps most importantly the power of symbol and myth as a factor
in good architecture. Indeed, Correa’s buildings, in their clever semiotic
appeal, seem often to be as much gestures to prevailing political ideology as
intelligent responses to an architectural problem.
Representative
Work
At the
Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Ahmedabad (1958 – 63), Correa uses a network of
interconnected open-to-sky spaces landscaped in different themes, to recreate
the Gandhian ideal of a self-sufficient village community. The result is an
elegant solution that is climatically sound and energy-efficient, uses low-cost
material and finishes, and above all conveys some sense of the solemnity and
dignity appropriate for an institution dedicated to Gandhi’s life and work.
Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Ahmedabad. Plan.
Notice massing of units.
Especially
remarkable here is Correa’s use of natural light in conjunction with semi-open
spaces to create tonal gradations in illumination and shadows. Correa
acknowledges a strong debt to Le Corbusier, and this effect of the Frenchman’s
influence is clearly visible here. The museum is solemn without being
overbearing, is austere without appearing to make an effort to be so.
Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Ahmedabad.
View of courts.. Note use and blend of material and texture.
Continuing the
same effort to interpret India’s vernacular architecture in a modern typology,
the National Crafts Museum (1975-90) at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi,
provides a forum to craftspeople nationwide to showcase their art – and the
process of its creation! – to visitors, both resident and alien.
National Crafts Museum, New Delhi. Plan. Note
linkage of spaces.
Its spaces
massed together to recreate an Indian village, the Museum incorporates extensive
use of vernacular material – stone, bamboo, brick, mud, thatch – and uses
craftwork as both interior and exterior ornamentation. The result is once again
a very impressive series of spaces that hold together as a unit, and display a
high degree of functional efficiency. Correa demonstrates here a successful
transition of the vernacular to the modern, as also how traditional
architectural vocabulary need not be synonymous with ‘backward’.
National Crafts Museum, New Delhi. Views with
details of ornament and landscape elements.
 It
is in his native Goa that Correa demonstrates a flair for an elegant use of
colour and contrast, combined with intelligent space planning. In the Kala
Akademi, Panaji, (1973-83) a centre for the performing arts, and the
Cidade de Goa (1978-82), a luxury hotel, he plays with a hierarchy of spaces
and terraces to create a spectacle of sorts in itself – and at both these sites
an illusion of space and spectators is created by paintings complementing the
architecture. At the Kala Akademi especially, Mario Miranda creates a skilful
impression of people already present in the theatre. The Cidade de Goa –
‘City of Goa’ in Portuguese – is planned as a microcosm of a traditional city –
complete with pedestrian streets, open space and marketplaces.
Kala
Akademi, Panaji.
Interior View.
The right side of this
interior,
including the human figures at bottom right,
is actually a painting.
Cidade
de Goa, Goa.
External terraces and balconies.
 When it
comes to monumental architecture, however, Correa has less success in
blending the vernacular and the modern. The Jeevan Bharti (Life
Insurance Corporation) (1975 – 86) headquarters at New Delhi towers over
Connaught Place, its glass curtain walls reflecting the colonial-era
buildings. Challenging and cocky, almost, in its aggressive use of
sandstone cladding and the massive metal truss uniting its components,
the Jeevan Bharti building disappoints in its details – the workmanship
can be shoddy in parts, the fine elegance that characterises Correa’s
smaller, earlier work is missing. This may be an inevitable consequence
of success – lacking the time to devote to each project the attention it
needs. For all this, the Jeevan Bharti building continues to
be the object of debate and polemic, as much for its bold use of material as for
the radical way in which it affects its urban surroundings.
In his project
for Navi Mumbai (New Bombay) (1964 - ), Correa argues for decongesting
Bombay’s historic city centre, breaking the vicious cycle of inflated
land-prices and accompanying high-rise growth, and limiting urban sprawl north
of the city. His solution is to develop the land across from Bombay Harbour and
increase road and rail links from the mainland to the new settlements, thus
reducing old Bombay’s primacy as the sole business center.
Navi Mumbai. New Bombay Redevelopment Plan.
Historic Bombay is to the left, new
development to the right across the harbor.
Stressed also
is the need to provide land for all, especially the urban poor. Inherent in
Correa’s scheme is an appeal to provide the invisible squatter population of
Bombay with a degree of human dignity and opportunity for growth that the
current system denies.
Conclusion
This summary
of Correa’s work, while including some seminal examples from his career, leaves
out far more than it includes. A few words, however, may be added here about
the larger significance of his career.
It is fairly
representative for a typical architect to handle projects that increase in
complexity and volume over time. This fact is a reflection of a professional’s
personal development as well as public recognition and confidence in his work, a
reputation that is built up over decades and after a body of significant work
has been completed.
What stands
out in Correa’s work, beyond this evolution, is his original fusion of modern
typology and South Asian elements, infusing at times almost mythical references
in his buildings. It is his skill for translating into built form an acceptable
political discourse that has contributed to his success, as much as his obvious
ability and aptitude as a professional.
December 18, 2005
(All images and photographs from Charles Correa, Thames and Hudson, London, 1996).
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